"part of her culture"

If these allegations are true - and the court's found in her favour - chalk up another great success for the social worker's default multicultural setting - "cringe".

Rashana is now 33 years old and lives in London. She grew up in Oldham with her mother, father and three brothers.

When admitted to hospital at three weeks old, she had suffered what was described as a non-accidental head injury. Social services recognised she was at risk, and placed her on the Child Protection Register.

But at the age of 14 months she was back in hospital suffering from malnutrition. Her hospital notes from this visit contain the words "baby had no visitors".

Over the years she was in and out of hospital with injuries, mainly inflicted by her mother.

There are laws against that sort of thing. Pity they don't get enforced for everyone.

Rashana was beaten throughout her childhood, threatened with a knife and, in her words "bounced off the walls". "I can remember coming home from school and I'd be scared to see what I was going to get when I got home, why I was going to get beaten up tonight," she said. It was a 15 minute walk home from school but if she didn't get home in 10 minutes she was beaten.

When she was assigned a social worker as a teenager she claims she was told the actions of her family was "part of her culture" and to "put up with it".

At 16 she told a teacher she thought she was pregnant and then revealed that she had been raped by her older brother since the age of 13. Rashana was not pregnant but insisted on being taken into care. Although her brother was given a caution for incest she was pressured into going back home by social services.

She claims social services officials were afraid of being called racist, and told her: "You're Asian, you shouldn't be in a care home."

Now to be fair, the right-on social worker who can find no evil in non-whites is becoming a bit of a cliche - remember the woman who ascribed the late Victoria Climbie's evident fear of her homicidal aunt to the 'respect for elders' so common in 'Caribbean culture' (she was African). But I'm not sure it's quite mainstream enough to be a standard part of the legal team's armoury in such cases - anyone know ? I shall go on the assumption that she's telling the truth.